


can't keep themselves up off the ground

by princessmartell



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:52:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessmartell/pseuds/princessmartell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were always meant for the sea.  Hook, Ariel, and choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	can't keep themselves up off the ground

**Author's Note:**

> This has already been posted on my tumblr, but I wanted something here, and so here it is!

When Hook finally makes it over to the other world, the one where magic shouldn’t exist but it does, and everything is a paradox because everyone is walking around with two lives in their heads, he just comes to seek vengeance on “The Dark One,” Rumpelstiltskin. He just wants his hand back.

He gets much, much more than he bargained for when he spots the red hair of his past when he’s doing reconnaissance in the woods searching for this Mr. Gold. He’s heard that Rumple likes to come here on walks, and Killian’s never been one to deny someone the chance to come and play with him. However, he sees her and it’s like she’s always been walking, and then he has to remind himself that in this world, she has. 

He wants to call out to her. He doesn’t.

—-

When she finally sees him at the bar one night, she can’t believe that this is happening. So she taps him on the shoulder and he looks at her, terrified and partially intrigued.  
She grabbed his hand and led him away, making sure to bring his beer with her (because he damn well cannot carry his own beer and hold her hand at the same time). 

“I thought that the curse didn’t bring you over,” she said, simply looking at him with this look of longing and missing him in her eyes.  
“I came to get my hand,” and it’s what unsaid that hurts her:  
Not for you. Never for you. Just to get what was rightfully mine.

She tells him that her name is Miranda in this world, and he responds that he still wishes to be called Killian.  
She smiles at that, telling him that he could be very Irish if he wished, but he would not be able to fool many in Storybrooke.

“Please, help me get my hand back,” he pleads with her, and she has never been able to deny him. Ariel only wants what’s best for her captain, and she will go to any means to get it.

—-  
Ultimately, they come to Gold’s shop and demand for his hand back.  
When Rumpelstiltskin refuses, Captain Hook, not Killian, comes back, and she can sense violence in the air.  
“Why should I give it to you, Killian? You stole everything from me that mattered; I am just simply returning the favor,” he states.  
“You are a crocodile who enjoys taking what isn’t his, and I will run you through,” and with that, she can practically hear the blades that will come out soon.   
“There must be something you want in return!” she practically shouts, trying to prevent any bloodshed.  
Rumple turns and looks at her, and it is like he’s truly seeing her for the first time.  
“Where did you find her, Hook?”  
“Don’t you go near her,” he says threateningly, though Ariel is never sure that there is never a note of dominance in Killian’s voice.  
“Oh, I won’t. But she sounds so lovely,” he says, and it becomes very clear to her what he wants.  
“You can have it,” she whispers softly. ”No one here talks to me anyway,” and a tear rolls down her cheek.  
“ARIEL, DON’T YOU DARE,” Killian shouts, but it is too late. Ariel is singing, weeping, and Gold is collecting her voice because he wants it, because he can. Because Gold can’t keep this promise and what does it matter when Belle is gone from him, after she crossed the line by accident?  
They leave that shop with their bodies wholly intact, but Killian is crying and pressing kisses into her hair and promising that he will fix this.  
She wants to tell him that all he has to do is kiss her, but how do you do that when he’s never lived this life and can’t use a phone, and she can’t speak?

—-  
Killian tries for weeks on end with no success.   
“I don’t know what else I can do, Ariel!” he shouts, frustrated and angry with the world and at himself. He has been staying at her apartment while he’s here, because now there isn’t a way back for him.   
“This is my fault. I should have never crossed over. I was selfish, and I can’t be selfish anymore. I want to help you, but I don’t know how. But I will never, ever give up, I promise you that”.

Finally, Ariel realizes the simple solution and kisses him first, and this is going beyond any boundary they had in the other life, because in that other life they just protected each other. He kept the sea clear from other harms and kept her safe; in return, she made sure that there weren’t storms and that the sea was safe for him to travel on. Always together, never apart.

Maybe they had been blind in the other life. Maybe in this life, they had a chance.  
But not here. Not in Storybrooke. There were too many ghosts, too many dangers.  
When they finally break apart and she can speak again, she whispers to him:  
“We have to leave,”  
and in that moment, he looks at her with such longing and desire and quickly closes his mouth over hers again.  
She cries out his name once, twice, three times that night, and is so glad for the chance to speak again.  
Ariel can feel his tears in her hair when he thinks she’s asleep, and she kisses the side of his head.  
“It’s alright now, love. We just have to leave.”  
He nods, knowing the truth of her words, but not knowing the implication behind them.

—-  
He storms into the apartment a few days later when she’s packing.  
“You didn’t tell me we would forget who we were!” he shouts, clearly angry.  
She stands up, ready to defend herself.  
“Killian, I don’t want two lives and neither do you. I’m choosing this, and I want you to choose it with me!”  
“I don’t want to forget the other life, and I certainly don’t want to forget who I was with you!”  
“I don’t care about the other life anymore! I was unhappy and we were blind and here, here we have a chance to be happy, truly and properly. We can be safe from everything, and all we have to do is leave. I’m asking you, please, come with me, because either way I’m going,” and she resumes packing, having calmed down, only to have him at her side a few moments later.  
“Ariel. That is your name. Why would you give up everything just to leave behind some ghosts?”  
She sighs. ”Killian,” she says, “I told you that my name is Miranda,”

He goes to their room and shuts the door, but when he comes out hours later, it is with a suitcase packed and a look in his eyes that admits that he’s willing to let go of everything that he had lived for, because of her.

—-  
They stop briefly before crossing the town line.  
“Are you ready?” she asks, turning off the ignition.   
He kisses her. ”As long as I remember who you are from this world, I am,”  
She starts the car and they cross the line.  
When she looks over to Killian and she is Miranda, only Miranda, growing up in a normal house and living a normal life, he stares at her blankly for a few minutes, and asks:  
“Why am I in your car?”  
She looks at him in shock before he cracks a smile at her and laughs:  
“I’m joking, Miranda! Of course Killian Jones remembers you”.

—-  
They wind up in a cottage by the sea and for some nagging reason, they know that this is where they were meant to be.  
There is no mention of their time in Storybrooke, and it lies between them never to be touched.

They grow old and live normal lives, and for some reason, when they go swimming, Miranda thinks that maybe she was born for this; maybe she’s in the wrong life.  
Killian just splashes her with water and tells her she’s being ridiculous.

He’s thankful that she does not hear him call her Ariel late at night, whispering tales of their other life together into her hair when he knows she’s asleep.

As long as she believed they both forgot, Miranda Jones is peaceful. And Killian?  
Killian no longer needs adventure.


End file.
